GENEVA -- The United Nations plans to help Kosovo refugees
return to their homes in two weeks, but thousands haven't
been willing to wait, despite the risks of land mines,
remaining Serb militants and water and food scarcities.

The U.N. refugee agency is not preventing the Kosovars from
leaving camps in neighboring countries, and is even
permitting them to take food, water and tents with them, said
Soren Jessen-Petersen, assistant U.N. high commissioner for
refugees (UNHCR), on Friday.

Of the estimated 750,000 refugees, at least 50,000 have
returned from neighboring Balkan states over the past three
days. On Thursday alone, 14,500 departed Albania and 3,000
left Macedonia.

As ethnic Albanians who found sanctuary outside of Kosovo
poured back into their home province, there were bottlenecks
at border stations and traffic jams along mountain roads.

After touring Kosovo, a province of Serbia wracked by months
of civil bloodshed and NATO bombs, Jessen-Petersen said there
were "significantly fewer" displaced Kosovars in hiding than
the 600,000 estimated by NATO during its airstrikes.

Jessen-Petersen said he worried about the "tractor people,"
refugees who fled rural areas on tractors and now want to
return.

"Those are the people that go straight to the villages, and
that's where the mines are," he said, referring to explosives
buried by Serb forces.

Officials of the NATO-led KFOR peacekeeping mission said
Thursday that at least four returning refugees had died from
mine blasts. The UNHCR has called in seven demining teams
from Bosnia to begin demarcation of possible mine fields.

Jessen-Petersen predicted that despite U.N. entreaties, most
refugee camps would be empty by the end of next week.
Remaining refugees, many living in temporary shelters or with
relatives, will be able to return by bus or airplane trips
organized by UNHCR.

In Blace, Macedonia, more refugees streamed across the
border, some in buses provided by the Macedonian government.
For them, the desire to return home after weeks or months of
exile in cramped shanty towns far outweighed the risks.

Kosovo refugees board buses provided by the Macedonian government

"I'm very grateful for all the help I've had at this camp,"
said one woman. "The tents have kept out the rain, and the
food has kept us from starving. But now it's the time for us
to go home."

Refugee workers caution the refugees against hasty returns,
but say they have no choice but to let them leave.

"They have family who are over in Kosovo who call them, and
some are encouraging them to go," said Ed Joseph of Catholic
Relief Services. "So it's quite understandable that people
would want to go and get up and leave a hot, dusty, muddy
airstrip and go home."

Despite the exodus, most refugees in Macedonia are taking
the advice of NATO and the United Nations and have remained
in camps near the Kosovo border.